The World is Waiting: Book One

By J. R. Clayton

Moved across country with only her mom and little brother, Ally finds herself alone and miserable. Ally had always lived a charmed life, but the life she had long taken for granted has been shattered. For the first time, Ally learns that in the blink of an eye, everything can change. With no friends, no idea how to fit in, and no idea how to turn her disaster-of-a-new-life around, Ally wonders how much longer she can endure the pain. Until Deedee. Travel alongside Ally as she meets an unlikely companion who invites her into a magical world filled with twenty-seven diverse and interesting talking animals. Ally's tour guide through this unexpected new world is Deidra, a fast-talking, quick-witted duck who prefers to be called Deedee. Together, Ally and Deedee embark upon astonishing journeys and discoveries. As they develop an unbreakable friendship, Deedee's enthusiasm and zest for life gives Ally newfound hope and encouragement to face her challenges head-on. Deedee's charm, intelligence, and wisdom inspire Ally to rethink her life, open her heart and mind, and celebrate the beautiful and magnificent things life has to offer. Together, Deedee and Ally learn some of life's universal lessons—most importantly, that because life is so short, we must triumph over pain and heartache and seize each moment of friendship, joy, laughter, and love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Apr 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781646286775

Book preview

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The World is Waiting

Book One

J. R. Clayton

Copyright © 2020 J. R. Clayton

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING, INC.

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2020

ISBN 978-1-64628-676-8 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-64628-677-5 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Dedication

To the animals of the world that have so many things to teach us—

we are glad you are here and hope it will always be so.

To the people of the world—

we have so many things to learn, most importantly that—in the end—only kindness matters.

We can inspire one another and learn from one another—if we choose. For after all, life is one big journey of lessons learned and lessons shared. And hopefully, a journey of never-ending friendship, joy, laughter, and love.

To my daughter, with all my hearts and flowers…

Synopsis

Moved across country with only her mom and little brother, Ally finds herself alone and miserable. Ally had always lived a charmed life, but the life she had long taken for granted has been shattered. For the first time, Ally learns that in the blink of an eye, everything can change. With no friends, no idea how to fit in, and no idea how to turn her disaster of a new life around, Ally wonders how much longer she can endure the pain. Until Deedee.

Travel alongside Ally as she meets an unlikely companion who invites her into a magical world filled with twenty-seven diverse and interesting talking animals. Ally’s tour guide through this unexpected new world is Deidra—a fast-talking, quick-witted duck—who prefers to be called Deedee.

Together Ally and Deedee embark upon astonishing journeys and discoveries. As they develop an unbreakable friendship, Deedee’s enthusiasm and zest for life gives Ally newfound hope and encouragement to face her challenges head-on. Deedee’s charm, intelligence and wisdom inspire Ally to rethink her life, open her heart and mind, and celebrate the beautiful and magnificent things life has to offer. Together, Deedee and Ally learn some of life’s universal lessons: most importantly that—because life is so short—we must triumph over pain and heartache and seize each moment of friendship, joy, laughter, and love.

Chapter 1

The Stones We Build With

Ally was sad. No. On second thought, Ally wasn’t sad—she was mad. Mad was better because mad was stronger. She was finished with the tears.

But whether it was sorrow or anger, or maybe a little of both, it really didn’t matter. Whatever it was, Ally would need to deal with it on her own—alone. She wished she could close her eyes, go to sleep, and wake up from this horrible dream. But she couldn’t.

Several pieces of Ally’s long brown spiral-curled hair fell forward, sweeping the sides of her reddened, freckled face as she gazed down at the ground, bending to pick up a small stone.

I hate this place, she mumbled to herself, as she slipped the smooth stone into her pocket. Why did Mom have to move us here anyway? And why does Ms. Leeds always have to call on me when I don’t know the answer? Ally wondered.

It isn’t fair! she thought to herself.

But just as that thought entered her mind, she heard her father’s voice reminding her that life isn’t fair. He would usually end his sermon about life’s lack of fairness by saying, From my experience, life is very unfair, and it can often be pretty tough. But, he would continue after letting out a long sigh, there are so many wonderful moments and beautiful things to experience in this world. Like when I held you for the first time…

Ally’s dad often talked about what a precious and intelligent baby she was and how he knew she was brilliant the moment he looked into her big brown eyes and watched them scanning the new world around her. He knew, as Ally lay in her hospital bassinet among all the other newborns, that she was the special one.

She thought back to the last time her dad had been with her. Ally and her father were sitting on the brown wooden bench outside the mall’s entrance that was located just a few miles from their old house. It was early October, and a cool breeze kept sending strands of Ally’s brown hair into her face. She kept trying to push it back behind her ears where it belonged, but it kept sticking to her wet cheeks. The weather was finally starting to cool off, and Ally was glad she had decided to wear jeans. In Arizona, it really didn’t start to cool off until the end of October, but today was unseasonably cool. Every Halloween would mark the unofficial beginning of the cold season in Arizona. Ally’s dad used to joke and say, It’s almost time to get your winter jacket out. You’re going to need to wear it at least once this year.

As much as she had attempted to prevent the tears from coming, Ally was crying, and she hated it. Crying was for babies. For the weak. And she wanted to be strong.

A few minutes prior, she had discovered that her brand new wallet, which she had just received for her eleventh birthday—along with the money and gift cards she had received from her grandmother and friends—was gone. Somehow, between the toy store and the food court, it had fallen out. The last time she had seen it was when she had stuffed it back into her purse after buying the puffy dog stickers with the hard plastic eyes for her little brother Adam. She and her father had retraced their journey from the toy store and back to the food court three times in hopes of finding it. But the search was futile—the wallet was gone. Her sense of panic had turned into despair, then disbelief, then anger, and finally sadness. All the money, all the gifts cards, all the possibility and hope of shopping for fun, out of the ordinary, whatever-you-want gifts was gone. What would she tell her grandmother and friends she had purchased with the money they had given her? Should she lie to spare their feelings? If she told them the truth, would they be angry at her for being careless? Feeling their anger on top of her sadness would only make matters worse. She imagined a stranger finding the wallet. She hoped the stranger would do the right thing and return the wallet, but then she wondered what she would do if she found a wallet with that much money and gift cards.

Ally felt she had failed herself as well as her friends and family. Why hadn’t she taken the time to make sure the wallet had been pushed down deeper into her purse? In her mind, she kept reliving the moment of placing the wallet in the purse. She kept reliving walking out of the store. Had someone reached in and grabbed it? Had her purse been bumped, causing the wallet to fall out while she was walking? If someone had seen it fall out, why didn’t they yell out to get her attention and give it back? Her school ID was in there too. That meant a trip to the school office for another picture and more inconvenience and explanations.

She remembered a time at Sea World a few years back. Ally and her family were waiting in line to buy tickets to get into the park. The man standing in line in front of them had just purchased tickets for his family. When he went to put his wallet into his back pocket, for whatever reason, a twenty-dollar bill fell to the ground. Ally watched it fall and looked back at her parents and her brother. Her mom and dad were in a discussion about the price of the tickets and the money they had budgeted for the vacation. Her brother at that time was only three, and he seemed to be enjoying jamming his face into her father’s leg in effort to get attention, which he typically did when he got tired and wanted to be picked up. The only one who had noticed the money fall was Ally.

She looked around, bent down, and picked it up. And then, for whatever reason, she quickly crumpled it up and closed her fist around it. She felt instantly guilty, but simultaneously excited. She knew it was wrong. She knew she should run ahead and give it back to the man who dropped it. She knew her parents would be utterly disappointed if they thought Ally would, for a moment, be tempted to steal something that didn’t belong to her. But she was unable to let go of the money. Her hand, with the twenty-dollar bill, stayed tightly clenched as the man who had dropped it and his family walked into the park and out of sight.

All the other people standing in line, entrenched in their own conversations and their own worlds, were completely unaware of Ally’s misgivings. Ally couldn’t believe no one had seen what happened. Ally couldn’t believe what she had just done.

As she sat on the bench outside the mall with her father that day in October, thinking about the loss of her wallet, Ally became acutely aware that what she had done a few years back at Sea World had been wrong. She had always known it had been wrong, even before she had done it. It was just that today, she felt like she was being taught a painful lesson. Perhaps, a lesson rightfully deserved.

As all these thoughts raced through Ally’s head, she felt her chest tighten and that feeling of fear as she realized she might be having another panic attack. The doctor had told Ally and her mother that Ally suffered from anxiety and